THE ATLAS MANEUVER

4 stars out of 5

Ah, what a tangled web! In this case, tangling the old with the new: old gold, new Bitcoin. Two cases, two sets of investigators and several possible outcomes - almost all not for the good of the country or retired Justice Department operative Cotton Malone and his small cadre of close friends and colleagues. I feel compelled to say that while both scenarios are extremely intriguing and entertaining - and I've been chomping at the bit for a long time to understand why everyone is so hot to trot (or not!) over Bitcoin - much of the very detailed explanations were way above my intellectual pay grade (that said, I know quite a bit more now than I did when I started the book).

But even if I couldn't quite grasp the complexities of something I can't see, touch or feel (a condition, I believe, called acatalepsy), there's plenty here that kept me fingering through my e-reader pages of this, the 18th book in one of my favorite series. And the ending - for which I'll provide no clues whatsoever - leaves a door wide open for the next installment. Mind you, I'm not totally sure how I feel about the specifics (regular readers of the books, I think, will understand what I mean when they finish this one).

The first (old) situation involves Yamashita's Gold, a stash reportedly worth billions of dollars that was hidden underground in the Philippines near the end of World War II. Some was recovered secretely by the U.S. government and has remained a secret known to only a few ever since; whether there is more - and where it is hidden - is a matter of conjecture. On the newer side, high-level employees at a Swiss bank have gained control of the aforementioned Bitcoin - also secretely - and are planning to wreak havoc on the world economy. Complicating the situation is that a woman who once was, shall we say, close to Cotton is a high-stakes player.

Working on the gold side is Cotton's old friend Derrick Koger, a European CIA operative who's tuned into the reports of buried treasure. He ends up working alongside Cassiopeia Witt, who now is, shall we say, close to Cotton. That in and of itself makes for an interesting situation, to say the least; but it is the action-packed goings-on (and danger) of the two scenarios - and how they end up coming together - that made me not want to put this one down. It's another exciting adventure, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy.

The Atlas Maneuver by Steve Berry (Grand Central Publishing, February 2024); 400 pp.